Barkha Dutt and Nira Radia Taped Conversations Scandal

NDTV’s Barkha Dutt is in some hot water thanks to a taped conversation between her and corporate lobbyist Nira Radia that was obtained by Open Magazine. Journalist Barkha Dutt has emerged as a lobbyist for the Congress government. Hindustan Times columnist Vir Sanghvi has also emerged as political lobbyist taking sides with petty political parties.

NDTV posted a strong rebuttal on its website terming the insinuation that Barkha lobbied for A Raja as “unsubstantiated, baseless and defamatory” and threatened action against Open which hit the stands on Thursday with the transcripts. “Struck by the bizarre irony of being accused of favouring a man I have never met (Raja) and have always attacked in print and on TV. Gnite!” was one of Barkha’s several Tweets on Thursday night.

Open also had Radia’s conversation with Sanghvi in which he is seen as agreeing to give a particular point of view in his column on the legal dispute between Reliance’s Ambani brothers and also favouring Raja. The Outlook edition, which was out on Friday, carried the story forward by printing Radia’s conversation with a whole lot of influential people, including Ratan Tata, Raja, Financial Express editor M K Venu and former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhatt­acharya, among others.